Thomas Hanscheid^1,2, Vera Codices², Adrian J.F. Luty³, Ayola A. Adegnika^1,4,5, Peter G. Kremsner^1,5 and Martin P. Grobusch^1,6

¹Medical Research Unit, Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Lambaréné, Gabon. ²Institute of Molecular Medicine and Institute of Microbiology, Lisbon Medical College, Lisbon, Portugal. ³Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. ⁴Department of Parasitol- ogy, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands. ⁵Department of Parasitology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. ⁶Infectious Diseases Unit, Division of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, National Health Laboratory Service and School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Abstract

Blood collected on FTA^® filter cards was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively with real-time PCR and the results compared with expert microscopy performed on-site in Gabon. There was 100% concordance for fresh blood samples. However, correlation of quantitative PCR-results was rather weak (0.52) and reproducibility showed coefficients of variation ranging from 10%–90%.